For the Democrats to have any chance of capturing a Senate majority in next week’s midterms, they need to hold on to a number of seats in states carried by Donald Trump in 2016. One of those is Indiana, my home state. Normally you might expect the Republicans to win comfortably in this conservative corner of the country. Instead, we are on a knife-edge; one mistake could prove potentially decisive. No wonder Trump has decided to hold a rally here on the eve of polling day.
Indiana is one of those Midwestern “flyover” states that gets overlooked by folks on the US coasts and is entirely unknown to people overseas. Lying to the southeast of Chicago, Indiana is best known for basketball and the Indianapolis 500 auto race, its farmland (primarily corn and soybeans), and three big universities, Indiana, Purdue and Notre Dame.
Like its neighbouring states to the east and west, Indiana’s demographics are best understood by dividing the state horizontally into thirds. Southern Indiana grew first, with a gradual influx from slave-holding states (particularly Kentucky, including a young Abraham Lincoln who came north with his family and spent his formative years in Indiana). Then the middle part of the state welcomed settlers from middle-Atlantic states like Maryland and Pennsylvania. The northern third followed, with settlers from upstate New York and New England, and in the mid-1800s it started seeing many immigrants arriving from Germany, Poland, Ireland and other European countries.
These early settlement patterns are still reflected in Indiana’s politics. Southern Indiana has a strong “southern state” conservative and evangelical Christian feel, while northern Indiana shows a stronger ethnic, Catholic influence. Much of the state’s population and power structure is based in central Indiana, particularly in the capital city of Indianapolis and the counties surrounding it.
Today, Indiana is about 81% non-Hispanic white, 9% African-American (living mainly in the larger urban areas), and 6% Hispanic. Manufacturing employment, traditionally related to the auto industry, is at 17%. Indiana has the most steel-producing plants in the country and also has a large presence in pharmaceuticals and medical devices. A Republican bastion since the Second World War, the state has supplied two recent vice-presidents: Dan Quayle (under George H.W. Bush) and the present one, Mike Pence.
Joe Donnelly, the Democrat incumbent, was elected Senator in 2012 in what most observers saw as a fluke. The well-respected six-term incumbent, Richard G. Lugar, had been beaten in the Republican primary by State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, a favourite of the conservative “Tea Party”. While President Barack Obama carried Indiana in 2008 (only the second time a Democratic presidential nominee had done that since 1939), the Republican ticket was expected to do much better in 2012.
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